Sawmills, timber framing a house

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My wife and I have finally decided we want to build an earth-contact house and we want to frame it out of beams that we cut and saw ourselves. I have built houses in the suburbs for two years, and I am adept at the basics of carpentry once the wood is sawed into boards. I have some questions about how lumber is made out of logs. Should the beams be dried or installed green? What kind of joints are the easiest and strongest to cut? Is pin oak all right to use for the beams? Should I buy myself a portable sawmill, and if so, which brand, size, etc. should I buy? Are there any sources of information on the web that I can get free? Are there any books on timber framing that might be useful? We are both school teachers/farmers with a community of people around that would help us build this home. We have a little money saved up, and we would like to take our time and build this home to last as long as we do. We are in the early stages of planning, design, so we would appreciate any helpful suggestions.

-- heath oates (heathoates@hotmail.com), October 16, 2000

Answers

If your only going to rip timber once while building your house, it may be more cost efficient to rent or trade out the use of one. I have heard of people trading sawmill use for a little extra timber during the milling. This would work well if you have the extra timber.

-- Jay Blair (jayblair678@yahoo.com), October 16, 2000.

Books about timber-framing -- Eric Sloane wrote one, and my husband has another one by Jack Sobon and Roger Schroeder, published by Storey Books. They would probably be a big help to you. We knew a guy who used a prtable chainsaw mill to make the timbers for his house -- he gave us his mill as he was through with it! We are going to use it to build our log cabin with three-sided logs (flattened on three sides). I think the books will answer most of your other questions. Good luck!

-- Kathleen Sanderson (stonycft@worldpath.net), October 16, 2000.

I agree, the Jack Sobon book "Build a Classic Timber-Framed House' is excellent. And the author is a practicing architect in New Hampshire who even helps put them up. A friend of mine is building his house from plans he got from Sobon, and he was very reasonable and helpful. His book is great and gives you all the basics for the simplest and easiest timber frame house to make. He will make plans for anything you want to build and is very into the concept of the owner-builder.

If you are going to timber -frame it, you should cut the joints in green timbers, much easier; the frame will dry after it is up.

I cut the timbers for my friend's house on a Wood-Miser portable sawmill we were partners on. If you have any other questions on milling I'll try to help, just let me know.

Good luck.

-- Rod Perrino (redjouster@aol.com), October 16, 2000.


The timber framing books mentioned are very good. For making the beams w/ a chain saw look up Robert L. Williams book "how to build your own log home for less than $15,000". Seemed like a good low budget way to make beams if you have the timber. Backwoods home magazine had this book, don't know if they still do.

Have you considered recycling beams? Lots of old barns available for no cash that have nice big beams. Mortise and Tenion joints w/ old wooden pins are a booger to get apart, but worth the effort. Here in the midwest, there are lots of old barns that are just slowly falling in or over.

Many farmers would be glad to have you take em. Just so long as there is NO LIABILITY on their part if you get hurt. And it can be dangerous to take down an old barn. Have seen some of these old beams cleaned up and they are just beautiful.

-- John in S IN (jsmengel@hotmail.com), October 17, 2000.


If you go to the about.com site and enter bandsaw mills, you'll get a wide variety of small sawmills.

I use a lot of bandsawed lumber. I try to let it dry several months. If you use green dimensional lumber, it's gonna shrink quite a bit...not much of a problem, if your going to have board and batten, the battens'll cover the shrinking boards. If your using beams, the differential shrinking I think would cause problems. If you have several months, I think you'd be better off stacking and stickering your lumber, both dimensional and beams, under a barn. If your cutting oak lumber, you'll need to paint the end of your lumber, otherwise there'll be large checking cracks. There's a special paint that's used by the pro's. Log cabin magazines and websites advertise the stuff. I messed up this spring...I painted plain ol latex on the end grain of 7000 bf of oak, and thought that would be enough. Thank goodness I cut most of it oversize, because it checked badly. Still usable, but have to work around the checks.

-- phil briggs (phillipbriggs@thenett.com), October 17, 2000.



The sawmillexchange.com is a great place to find used sawmills and related equipment. They are very helpful and responsive.

-- Rod Perrino (redjouster@aol.com), October 18, 2000.

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